


There's No Such Thing as Fairy Tale Ending

by soniagiris



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Ending, Episode: s01 Dislocœur | Dark Cupid, Gen, Hawk Moth is Gabriel Agreste, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 08:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10510362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soniagiris/pseuds/soniagiris
Summary: When she kisses him, the world splits. In one world, she saves him. In the other, there's no place for such kindness.





	

**Author's Note:**

>   * warnings in the end notes o3o
>   * beta by vee @ikuzonos and misty @mistropolis, thank you!! 
> 


(Love is the cure, Ladybug thinks as she kisses Chat. Love will make him snap out of him, she thinks as her eyes stay closed and lips slightly parted. She trusts in it.)   
(In the world where love is the cure, Chat blinks, leaps to his feet and attacks Dark Cupid.    
But this isn't that kinder world. This world is cruel and unforgiving.)   
The touch of Cataclysm on her cheek is almost tender, the edges of Chat's palm feeling like the beat of a butterfly's wings. For a moment, Ladybug hopes. For what? Ah, she doesn't have the time to decide.   
Then she feels pain, the  _ p a i n, _ and, oh god oh god  _ oh dear god _ it's overwhelming it's ripping her apart she feels her body  _ rot _ and she screams out, "Chat, Chat, please,  _ please! _ Don't, pl—"   
Those are her last legible words. When Ladybug dies, so gracelessly, she only howls like an animal.    
When Ladybug dies, Marinette Dupain-Cheng dies with her,  _ as _ her. They disappear, just like that, just without any further ado. The only things left are inconspicuous earrings and a small, disoriented kwami.)   
  


* * *

  
  
One second, Adrien is no more, and his place is taken by this smug, flirty Chat Noir who's never afraid, never hesitating. Next moment, there's only Adrien, his head swimming and finger ringless. But Plagg is with him, and with him is also an unknown kwami, red and bug-like; both of them are blank-faced and silent.   
"What happened?" Adrien asks, rubbing his temple. There was an akuma that he remembers, and arrows, and Ladybug, and—   
"Not now, kid," Plagg says without looking him in the eye. His whiskers shiver, almost unnoticeably.   
"Where's my Miraculous? Who is— Is it Ladybug's kwami? What happened to her?" Adrien feels his heart skip a beat. He looks around and recognizes those abandoned streets. That's good, but he were around five kilometers away from this part of the city when... "Where is—"   
"Not. Now." Plagg frowns and mutters something to his companion, then says, not unkindly "Let's go to your place. You... may not want to stay here. Come on."   
Frowning, Adrien follows, but something in him already knows. He ignores it, but the weight on his heart won't fade away.   
  


* * *

  


There's a new movie on the Ladyblog. Adrien clicks on it when kwamis will not answer his questions.   
After a few minutes, his lungs won't work, hands won't stop shaking, and yet he can't pull his eyes off the screen. Off the evidence.   
It's just a short, shaky film showing him using Cataclysm on Ladybug. Him leaving with Dark Cupid. And then there's a splash of green light coloring the pixelated background.   
So that's— that's what happened. He gave up his Miraculous. He just gave it away. He— oh  _ god. _ Feeling like fainting, Adrien sits on the floor and tries to process what happened.   
Hawk Moth has the Miraculouses. Ladybug is dead. Oh— oh fuck.   
"Fuck," he repeats. And it feels good, feel appropriate (that's what Chat would say, and Chat is—). After a moment, he whispers, "Shit." His voice cracks. "Shit!"   
It kind of escalates from there, to the point when the wallpaper is covered in red splotches, his knuckles are bloody, and the kwamis try to pull him away. 

"Adrien, Adrien, stop," Plagg chants. "It's okay, kid, calm down! Tikki!" he hisses at Ladybug's kwami. She shakes her head, eyes watery. "Do something, you're the one that—"

"I'm— I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I don't—" The kwami sobs out and flies away.   
"Okay, Plagg, it's okay," Adrien whispers. "I'm okay. I— I f-fucked up really bad, but don't," he swallows, his throat dry and scratchy like sandpaper, "don't worry about me. It's— it's truly not the current priority."   
"You stupid brat," Plagg spits out, but the look he gives Adrien isn't angry. "I always worry about my kittens."

  


* * *

  
  
To everyone's surprise, Hawk Moth doesn't attack right away. Adrien appreciates those fleeting moments of peace and the presence of kwamis. He knows they will disappear when Hawk Moth tries to use their Miraculouses, so he tries to talk with them, combine their snippets of secrets into something that can help. Could help, if only Chat didn't kill his Lady, and then got himself vanquished. So Adrien is also trying to get used to being Just Adrien. No speaking his mind, no joyous quipping with Ladybug, no jumping through dark Paris, no sitting on rooftops with his partner by his side and watching the smog fill with colors of traffic lights, no more—   
Just Adrien; empty smiles and empty words.   
He decides against skipping school. There's still Nino, and Alya, and Chloe, and Marinette.   
But he's wrong about that too. Two days after that horrible catastrophe (his fault  _ his _ fault), Alya puts up, all over the school, several posters with Mari's face on them. Angry red letters spelling 'MISSING' are visible from hundreds of meters away. Adrien stops by the one in the locker room and stares, thoughtful. Blue eyes, dark pigtails, kind smile... Ladybug's smile.   
"Fuck," he says flatly. Nino laughs for a few good minutes before asking why did The Perfect Boy say a naughty. Adrien lies about a bad day. Thinks, I should have known. His nails bit into his skin.   


  


* * *

  


And then, just as expected, everything goes to shit. Plagg and Tikki are sucked away, there are akumas everywhere, and his father is missing. 

Adrien barely has time to notice it, barely has time to think about how often, just after Ladybug's death, he caught father staring at him with a strange smile, and he's really blind, isn't he. 

Paris reeks of smoke and blood, and soon French borders are closed, then EU's, then there are akumas in Russia, in China, in both Americas—   
Time stops being stable. It rushes. It swallows him whole.   
The world is over, Adrien thinks distantly as he stares at rioters from his glass dome of a house, it's all over. Because of him. He bites his lip, trying not to weep, but that doesn't stop tears from flowing on his dirty, banged up face.   
Everything has ended, and he's still holding on. That's the whole new level of cruelty.   
  


* * *

  
(Love is the cure, he thinks as he breaks into Hawk Moth's — his father's — hideout, discovering the location only through sheer luck. Love will make him snap out of it.   
He begs for this iniquity to stop, but Gabriel's expression lacks forgiveness, lacks understanding. 

He just says, "You formerly being Chat Noir... Don't think blood ties are going to save you."   
And Adrien dies without a word, but, even so, it's hard to die as a human.)   


**Author's Note:**

> a/n
> 
>   * **cw: pda; light gore; character death(s); swearing; light self-harm (punching a wall :^3c)**
>   * this is hecka old but not That bad. comment, please? i thrive off feedback. i need it. i use any feedback i get to feed my family, my wife and kids and the dog and the mortgag- *shot*
> 



End file.
